What Did We Learn

Healthcare is full of boundaries. Between hospitals. Between specialties. Between teams. Between the clinicians who stabilise a critically ill patient and those who retrieve them. Patients, of course, don’t recognise any of them. One of the things we’ve enjoyed most about developing the ResusPro Workshop has been seeing it become a place where different parts

HALO Procedures Need Teams. Resuscitative thoracotomy is one of the very few true HALO procedures that every resus room team needs to know and practise. It is high acuity, low occurrence – and when it is needed, there is very little time to work out who does what. That’s why we don’t teach it as

This is Bay 3 at ResusPro. There’s nothing particularly dramatic happening. But almost everything in this picture is there for a reason. A clock you can see. A difficult-airway algorithm where you might actually need it. A GlideScope ready to use. Suction. Ventilation. Syringe pumps. Equipment organised and labelled so that people can find it

Blood gases are everywhere in Emergency Medicine. We take them early. We repeat them. We discuss the pH, base excess and lactate. But getting the result is not the same as understanding it and doing something about it. At ResusPro, our simulated blood gas analyser produces results like this during scenarios. You ask for a

One of the challenges of Emergency Medicine is that we have to move critically ill patients. Ambulance trolley to ED trolley. ED trolley to CT table. And back again. Imaging can be a game changer. We aim to get our major trauma patients through trauma CT within 30 minutes of arrival – and sooner when

On our courses, delegates are often surprised by just how rapid a rapid transfusion can be – when the whole system works. When planning our real resus room, we posed a simple question: How long should it take between deciding that a shocked trauma patient needs blood and the blood actually flowing? Our answer: 60

For years, like most centres, we used expired prescription-only medicines (POMs) in training: old adrenaline minijets, leftover ampoules, out-of-date stock. It felt realistic. But when we built ResusPro, we paused. There are real issues. POMs are tightly regulated in supply, storage and disposal. Some drugs damage manikins. Using expired medicines subtly normalises unsafe practice. And

People often ask about the manikins we use at ResusPro. For major trauma, we use hyper-realistic Simbodies models – detailed, procedurally capable platforms that replicate severe injury with striking visual fidelity. For cardiac arrest and post-ROSC care, we primarily use ATLAS ALS simulators – robust, physiologically responsive systems designed for high-quality CPR, airway management and

In a real resus room, we’re constantly on the phone or computer. Coordinating teams. Activating massive transfusion. Reviewing blood gases. Documenting decisions. So our ResusPro resus rooms have phones and computers too. But we hadn’t initially thought about two important things: Who do we communicate with, and what do they say? Real-life comms aren’t neat.